After I'm Gone: A Novel

Dead is dead. Missing is gone. When Felix Brewer meets nineteen-year-old Bernadette "Bambi" Gottschalk at a Valentine's Day dance in 1959, he charms her with wild promises, some of which he actually keeps. Thanks to his lucrative - if not all legal - businesses, she and their three little girls live in luxury. But on the Fourth of July in 1976, Bambi's comfortable world implodes when Felix, facing prison, vanishes. Though Bambi has no idea where her husband - or his money - might be, she suspects one woman does: his devoted young mistress, Julie.

I'd Know You Anywhere

In the summer of 1985, when she was fifteen, Eliza was kidnapped by Walter and held hostage for almost six weeks. He had killed at least one girl and Eliza always suspected he had other victims as well. Now on death row in Virginia for the rape and murder of his final victim, Walter seems to be making a heartfelt act of contrition as his execution nears. Though Eliza wants nothing to do with him, she's never forgotten that Walter was most unpredictable when ignored.

And When She Was Good

Heloise considers it a blessing to be a person who seldom attracts attention. In her suburb, she's just a mom, the young widow with the forgettable job, who somehow never misses a soccer game. In the state capital, she's the redheaded lobbyist with a good cause and a mediocre track record. But in discreet hotel rooms throughout the area, she's the woman of your dreams - if you can afford the hourly fee. For more than a decade, Heloise believed she was safe, managing to keep up this rigidly compartmentalized life. But her secret life is under siege. One county over, another so-called suburban madam has been found dead in her car, an apparent suicide.

Baltimore Blues: Tess Monaghan, Book 1

Unemployed at 29, Tess Monaghan is willing to take any freelance job to pay the rent - including a bit of unorthodox snooping for her rowing buddy, Darryl "Rock" Paxton. In a city where someone is murdered almost every day, attorney Michael Abramowitz's death should be just another statistic. But the slain lawyer's notoriety - and his noontime trysts with Rock's fiancée - make the case front page news...and point to Rock as the likely murderer.

Wilde Lake: A Novel

Luisa "Lu" Brant is the newly elected - and first female - state's attorney of Howard County, Maryland, a job in which her widower father famously served. Fiercely intelligent and ambitious, she sees an opportunity to make her name by trying a mentally disturbed drifter accused of beating a woman to death in her home. It's not the kind of case that makes headlines, but peaceful Howard County doesn't see many homicides.

The Most Dangerous Thing

Years ago, they were all the best of friends. But as time passed and circumstances changed, they grew apart, became adults with families of their own, and began to forget about the past—and the terrible lie they all shared. But now Gordon, the youngest and wildest of the five, has died and the others are thrown together for the first time in years.

To the Power of Three: A Novel

Lippman's brilliant and disturbing tale of three inseparable high school girlfriends in an affluent Baltimore suburb who share dark secrets literally until death, To the Power of Three is this "writing powerhouse" (USA Today), who has "exploded the boundaries of the mystery genre to become one of the most significant social realists of our time" (Madison Smartt Bell) operating at the very top of her game.

Every Secret Thing

Kicked out of a birthday party, 11-year-olds Alice and Ronnie walk home and encounter a baby left in a carriage. Their earnest desire to do a good deed ends tragically, however, and seven years later they are released from "kid prison" to start their lives anew.

Life Sentences

Author Cassandra Fallows has achieved remarkable success by baring her life on the page. Her two widely popular memoirs continue to sell briskly, acclaimed for their brutal, unexpurgated candor about friends, family, lovers - and herself. But now, after a singularly unsuccessful stab at fiction, Cassandra believes she may have found the story that will enable her triumphant return to nonfiction.

Hardly Knew Her

Each of these ingenious tales is a gem, sometimes poignant, sometimes humorous, always filled with delightfully unanticipated twists and reversals. For people who have yet to listen to Lippman, get ready to experience the spellbinding power of "one of today's most pleasing storytellers" (San Diego Union-Tribune). As for longtime devotees of her multiple award-winning novels, you'll discover that you hardly know her.

Final Girls: A Novel

Ten years ago college student Quincy Carpenter went on vacation with five friends and came back alone, the only survivor of a horror movie-scale massacre. In an instant she became a member of a club no one wants to belong to - a group of similar survivors known in the press as the Final Girls.

Girl Last Seen

I force myself to look at the face in the photo, into her slightly smudged features, and I can't bring myself to move. Olivia Shaw could be my mirror image, rewound to 13 years ago. I've spent a long time peering into the faces of girls on missing posters, wondering which one replaced me in that basement. But they were never quite the right age, with the right look, in the right circumstances. Until Olivia Shaw, missing for one week tomorrow.

A single mother turns up dead at the bottom of the river that runs through town. Earlier in the summer, a vulnerable teenage girl met the same fate. They are not the first women lost to these dark waters, but their deaths disturb the river and its history, dredging up secrets long submerged. Left behind is a lonely 15-year-old girl. Parentless and friendless, she now finds herself in the care of her mother's sister, a fearful stranger who has been dragged back to the place she deliberately ran from - a place to which she vowed she'd never return.

Silent Child

In the summer of 2006, Emma Price watched helplessly as her six-year-old son's red coat was fished out of the River Ouse. It was the tragic story of the year - a little boy, Aiden, wandered away from school during a terrible flood, fell into the river, and drowned. His body was never recovered. Ten years later Emma has finally rediscovered the joy in life...until Aiden returns.

Stillhouse Lake

With her ex now in prison, Gwen has finally found refuge in a new home on remote Stillhouse Lake. Though still the target of stalkers and Internet trolls who think she had something to do with her husband's crimes, Gwen dares to think her kids can finally grow up in peace. But just when she's starting to feel at ease in her new identity, a body turns up in the lake - and threatening letters start arriving from an all-too-familiar address.

Liar

How far would you go to protect your family? Single dad Ben is doing his best to raise his children, with the help of his devoted mother, Judi. And then Ben meets Amber. Everyone thinks this is a perfect match for Ben, but Judi isn't so sure.... There's just something about Amber that doesn't add up. Ben can't see why his mother dislikes his new girlfriend. And Amber doesn't want Judi anywhere near her new family. Amber just wants Ben and the children.

Missing, Presumed: A Novel

At 39, Manon Bradshaw is a devoted and respected member of the Cambridgeshire police force, and though she loves her job, what she longs for is a personal life. Single and distant from her family, she wants a husband and children of her own. One night, after yet another disastrous Internet date, she turns on her police radio to help herself fall asleep - and receives an alert that sends her to a puzzling crime scene.

Truly Madly Guilty

In Truly Madly Guilty, Liane Moriarty takes on the foundations of our lives: marriage, sex, parenthood, and friendship. She shows how guilt can expose the fault lines in the most seemingly strong relationships, how what we don't say can be more powerful than what we do, and how sometimes it is the most innocent of moments that can do the greatest harm.

The Party

A taut psychological tale of obsession and betrayal set over the course of a dinner party, The Party tells the story of two married couples who, in a single evening, will come to question everything they thought they knew about each other as the long-buried secret at the heart of their friendship comes to the surface, culminating in an explosive act of violence.

The Woman in Cabin 10

Lo Blacklock, a journalist who writes for a travel magazine, has just been given the assignment of a lifetime: a week on a luxury cruise with only a handful of cabins. The sky is clear, the waters calm, and the veneered, select guests jovial as the exclusive cruise ship, the Aurora, begins her voyage in the picturesque North Sea. At first Lo's stay is nothing but pleasant: The cabins are plush, the dinner parties are sparkling, and the guests are elegant. But as the week wears on, frigid winds whip the deck, and gray skies fall.

The Girl Before

Clara Lawson is torn from her life in an instant. Without warning, her home is invaded by armed men, and she finds herself separated from her beloved husband and daughters. The last thing her husband yells to her is to say nothing. In chapters that alternate between past and present, the novel slowly unpeels the layers of Clara's fractured life. We see her growing up, raised with her sisters by the stern Mama and Papa G, becoming a poised and educated young woman, falling desperately in love with the forbidden son of her adoptive parents.

One Perfect Lie

On paper, Chris Brennan looks perfect. He's applying for a job as a high school government teacher, he's ready to step in as an assistant baseball coach, and his references are impeccable. But everything about Chris Brennan is a lie. Susan Sematov is proud of her son, Raz, a high school pitcher so athletically talented that he's being recruited for a full-ride scholarship to a Division I college, with a future in major league baseball. But Raz’s father died only a few months ago, leaving her son in a vulnerable place where any new father figure might influence him for good - or evil.

Behind Her Eyes: A Novel

Louise is a single mom, a secretary, stuck in a modern-day rut. On a rare night out, she meets a man in a bar, and sparks fly. Though he leaves after they kiss, she's thrilled she finally connected with someone. When Louise arrives at work on Monday, she meets her new boss, David. The man from the bar. The very married man from the bar...who says the kiss was a terrible mistake but who still can't keep his eyes off Louise.

All the Missing Girls: A Novel

It's been 10 years since Nicolette Farrell left her rural hometown after her best friend, Corinne, disappeared from Cooley Ridge without a trace. Back again to tie up loose ends and care for her ailing father, Nic is soon plunged into a shocking drama that reawakens Corinne's case and breaks open old wounds long since stitched. The decade-old investigation focused on Nic; her brother, Daniel; her boyfriend, Tyler; and Corinne's boyfriend, Jackson. Since then only Nic has left Cooley Ridge.

Publisher's Summary

Thirty years ago, two sisters disappeared from a shopping mall. Their bodies were never found, and those familiar with the case have always been tortured by these questions: How do you kidnap two girls? Who or what could have lured the two sisters away from a busy mall on a Saturday afternoon without leaving behind a single clue or witness?

Now a clearly disoriented woman involved in a rush-hour hit-and-run claims to be the younger of the long-gone Bethany sisters. But her involuntary admission and subsequent attempt to stonewall investigators only deepens the mystery. Where has she been, why has she waited so long to come forward? Could her abductor truly be a beloved Baltimore cop? There isn't a shred of evidence to support her story, and every lead she gives the police seems to be another dead-end: a dying, incoherent man; a razed house; a missing grave; and a family that disintegrated long ago, torn apart not only by the crime but by the fissures the tragedy revealed in what appeared to be the perfect household.

In a story that moves back and forth across the decades, there is only one person who dares to be skeptical of a woman who wants to claim the identity of one Bethany sister without revealing the fate of the other. Will he be able to discover the truth?

What the Critics Say

"Edgar-winner Lippman...shows she's as good as Peter Abrahams and other A-list thriller writers with this outstanding stand-alone." (Publishers Weekly) "An uncommonly clever impostor story, so cagily constructed that it easily fulfills the genre's two basic demands. First, Ms. Lippman is able to keep her reader guessing about the main character's disputed identity until the very end of this book. Second, when the revelation comes, it makes perfect sense, and it has been hiding in plain sight. This is not one of those mysteries with a denouement that feels tacked on, half baked or pulled out of thin air." (The New York Times)

I thought this was an exceptionally good audiobook. Great, fascinating plot that grips you, fascinating characters, excellent narration. Yes, you should be prepared to go back and forth in time, as you can tell from the book description, but it always marks a time change with a new chapter and/or music that breaks it up, and I did not find it difficult to follow at all. Very highly recommended.

As a photographer, I spend long hours editing photos at my computer and I need quick paced, story driven books to keep me working. As a long time Audible customer, I've learned to read reviews and try to narrow my choices to reads that meet that criteria. Despite my care, I've run across several recently that I simply couldn't get through.

So I was very happy when I came across "What the Dead Know." I thoroughly enjoyed the story and loved the pace of it. And, even as a long time thriller and mystery reader, it surprised me in the end.

My first Laura Lippman. Although the solution to the mystery was easy enough to predict, the writing was good enough to keep me listening. And the narrator was excellent. You audible listeners know how a poor narrator can almost spoil a good book, This one was very good.

This is my first Lippman listen, and as you other listeners know, if you pause for too long, you can easily lose the plot. This tale moves back and forth in time with few clues as to where you are. A reader can easily flip back a few pages to refresh his/her memory, but listeners will have a harder time. That said, it is well worth the effort. The characters stories at first seem very disconnected, but in the end they all come together in a believeable, but hard to predict ending. A very worthwhile , hard to put down book, especially if you're are familiar with Balimer.

I loved the complexity of the central mystery, and how pieces of the puzzle were shared a little at a time. It's a cliche, but this story was like peeling back the layers of an onion. The author played fair - no outrageous curve balls that changed the essential trajectory of the mystery. The solution made sense and was satisfying, but I didn't have it fully figured out. Nice to have some surprises in the middle of the onion. The reason for 4 instead of 5 stars is that I felt some of the characters were a little flat, specifically those trying to solve the mystery. Still, I highly recommend the story - it does hold your attnetion and keep you guessing.

This is my second Lippman book. Having heard good things about the author, I tried a listen to a Tess Monaghan story and came away very mixed. This book leaves me with no mixed feelings. Definitely the audio version of a page-turner. I found myself making excuses for 15 minute trips to get another few minutes with the story. Well penned, well read. I guess I need to go back and see if my opinion on the Monaghan series changes...

many mysteries start off well, and leave you unsatisfied in the end. I found this book stunning in its psychological complexity and truthfulfness. it takes you into the minds of all the major and minor characters, keeps you wanting to know more, reveals just enough, and comes to a believable and heart wrenching conclusion. I, too, guessed the identity of the protagonist, but was utterly surprised by the details of her story. One of the most wonderful books on tape I have experienced. Not to take away from the skill of the narrator, who is wonderful, but the story is what will grab you.

I had a hard time knowing who was talking and what time frame I was in. The narrator is not objectionable, but her voice is very monotonous and I found myself drifting off from time to time. Either the narrator's tone or the author's writing style created emotional distance from the story so that I never really became involved with any of the characters. I found both the detective and the central character (I'm not sure whether to call her 'Heather' or 'Sunny' or the victim or the perpetrator) very off putting. The detective's continual assessment of every female he met for her sexual desirability was repellent, and the protratonist's constant lying made me unsure of her likability. The ending was all wrapped up satisfactorily, almost too pat. Hence three stars. Even though I was struggling to get involved there was something that kept me going, but I'm not sure if it was the desire to see the end or the money I spent on the book! Perhaps others will like it better than I did.

I was a little nervous about trying this author because I didn't know anything about her. I was very pleasantly surprised. I had also guessed the plot twist, but it was still a wonderful story. I actually "knew" the characters and I was sad when it was over.